Yang Tianyou- Chinese FigureMortal
Also known as: Yáng Tiānyòu, 杨天佑, and 楊天佑
Description
When Yaoji, sister of the Jade Emperor, descended to the mortal world and married Yang Tianyou, heaven's punishment was swift. Yaoji was buried beneath Mount Tao, and her mortal husband, a scholar with no divine power, could do nothing but raise their son alone.
Mythology & Lore
The Scholar and the Goddess
Yaoji, younger sister of the Jade Emperor, descended from heaven to the mortal world. The Erlang baojuan tells how she encountered Yang Tianyou, a scholar without rank or wealth, and chose him. He had nothing to offer a goddess but an ordinary life. She wanted exactly that.
They married in secret. Celestial law forbade marriage between gods and mortals, and the penalty fell on the divine partner. Yaoji hid her nature. She kept house in a mortal town, cooked mortal food, lived mortal days. She bore Yang Tianyou a son they named Yang Jian. For a time, no one in heaven noticed a missing goddess.
Beneath Mount Tao
When the Jade Emperor discovered his sister had married a human, he sent celestial soldiers to the mortal world. They came for Yaoji. The soldiers did not speak to Yang Tianyou. A mortal husband had no standing before heaven's law. His wife was seized from their home, carried back above the sky, and imprisoned beneath Mount Tao. The full weight of the mountain pressed down on her, stone and silence.
Yang Tianyou was left with their son. He had no divine power, no standing in heaven's courts, no way to shift the mountain or reach what lay beneath it. His wife was alive under the stone, and he could not help her. He raised Yang Jian alone in the mortal world, a half-divine boy growing up between two worlds that had decided his family should not exist.
In the Precious Lotus Lantern tradition, Yang Jian grew up and took an axe to Mount Tao. He split the mountain and freed his mother. Yang Tianyou's story ended at the base of that mountain. His son's began there.
Relationships
- Family